Jason Peters

A portrait of an American thinker with contributions by Barbara Kingsolver, Bill McKibben, Sven Birkerts, Wes Jackson, and more: “A masterful collection.” —Charlotte Observer Essayist, social critic, poet, “mad farmer,” novelist, teacher, and prophet: Wendell Berry has been called many things, but the broad sweep of his contemporary relevance and influence defies facile labels. With a unique perspective and far-reaching vision, Berry poses complex questions about humankind and our relationship to the land and offers simple but profound solutions. Berry’s writings give voice to a provocative but consistent philosophy that extends far beyond its agrarian core to include elements of sociology, the natural sciences, politics, religion, philosophy, linguistics, agriculture, and other seemingly incompatible fields of study. Wendell Berry: Life and Work examines this wise, original thinker, appraising his written work and exploring his influence as an activist and artist. Each of the contributors—including Hayden Carruth, Sven Birkerts, Barbara Kingsolver, Stanley Hauerwas, Donald Hall, Ed McClanahan, Bill McKibben, Scott Russell Sanders, Norman Wirzba, Wes Jackson, and Eric T. Freyfogle—examines an aspect of Berry’s varied yet cohesive body of work. Also included are highly personal glimpses of Berry: his career, academic influence, and unconventional lifestyle. These deft sketches show the purity of Berry’s agrarian lifestyle and demonstrate that there is nothing simple about the life to which he’s devoted himself. He embraces a life that sustains him not by easy purchase and haste but by physical labor and patience, not by mindless acquiescence to a centralized economy but by attention to local ways and wisdom. This book combines biographical sketches, personal accounts, literary criticism, and social commentary. The result is a rich portrait of one of America’s most profound and honest thinkers.

Life and Work

Wendell Berry

Mark T. Mitchell

In the United States the conventional left/right distinction has become increasingly irrelevant, if not harmful. The reigning political, cultural, and economic visions of both the Democrats and the Republicans have reached obvious dead ends. Liberalism, with its hostility to any limits, is collapsing. So-called Conservatism has abandoned all pretense of conserving anything at all. Both dominant parties seem fundamentally incapable of offering coherent solutions for the problems that beset us. In light of this intellectual, cultural, and political stalemate, there is a need for a new vision. Localism in the Mass Age: A Front Porch Republic Manifesto assembles thirty-one essays by a variety of scholars and practitioners--associated with Front Porch Republic--seeking to articulate a new vision for a better future. The writers are convinced that human apprehension of the true, the good, and the beautiful is best realized within a dense web of meaningful family, neighborhood, and community relationships. These writers seek to advance human flourishing through the promotion of political decentralism, economic localism, and cultural regionalism. In short, Front Porch Republic is dedicated to renewing American culture by fostering the ideals necessary for strong communities.

A Front Porch Republic Manifesto

Localism in the Mass Age

More than a collection of vignettes and stories from garden, grill, and kitchen, The Culinary Plagiarist is a sustained adventure in gustatory delight, an intensely private but candid account of desire and all its objects. Opinionated on the full range of human experience, from fasting to inebriety, from sports to politics, from religion to raunch, it is at once serious, humorous, ironic, reflective, grateful, allusive, and appetitive. Along the way it offers a defense of small-scale, local life, of family, of place, and of “the bread we do not live alone by.” And also the drinks. Don’t forget the drinks. This is a book for people who enjoy being alive, whether in the kitchen, the pasture, the library, the barn, the trout stream, the henhouse (or the doghouse), or the bedroom.

(Mis)Adventures of a Lusty, Thieving, God-Fearing Gourmand

The Culinary Plagiarist

Rob Watson

Jenessa Gayheart

Daniel Kurland

Dorothy-Ann Grandberry

In the spirit of classic sci-fi/fantasy/horror short story collections such as Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man and Stephen King's Nightmares & Dreamscapes, we welcome you to the inaugural edition of the Aberrant Literature Short Fiction Collection, a periodic anthology compiling five of the best and most creative original Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror stories from across the country. Whether attending an intergalactic tournament of champions on a far-away planet, being whisked away to a fantastical land where humans have inexplicably been turned to stone, or joining a young reporter in New York city as his attraction to a mermaid-shaped swizzle stick quickly turns to obsession, each of the five stories in this first volume of the Aberrant Literature Short Fiction Collection is certain to provide you the unique and exciting experience that is lacking from the current literary landscape. None of these stories have been released before, and are exclusive to the Aberrant Literature Short Fiction Collection. Be sure to stay on the lookout for future collections, and we hope that you will continue to join us on our journey as we search the country for the most creative and imaginative short fiction on the horizon.

Aberrant Literature Short Fiction Collection

Ashton Macaulay

Carl Reid

Mark Daponte

M. T. Roberts

Nathan Hodgdon

Welcome to Volume 3 of the Aberrant Literature Short Fiction Collection, a periodic anthology compiling five of the best and most creative Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror stories from across the country. Our first story takes you far into the future, while smacking you backwards towards the past. A time-travelling Private Investigator is hired by a client to travel back several generations and "take care of" a troublesome family member. Before he knows it, the P.I. finds himself embroiled in a twisted web of deceit and uncertainty in the neo-noir thriller, The Life & Times of a Private Tick by Carl Reid. Our following story is The Nuremburger Trial by Mark Daponte. Loyal employee Scott Willard, having long been the face of mass conglomerate burger chain McRonalds, finds himself in a jail cell awaiting trial for mass murder. Upon reaching the courtroom, however, he finds that the situation is not at all what he expected, and matters take a turn for the bizarre. Our third story, Diary of a Dead Man by Ashton Macaulay, follows Brian. Brian is a writer, or at least he was until the day he stepped out into the street and was obliterated by a semi-truck. Since then, he has been resigned to the afterlife, where he lives a ho-hum existence, haunting hotel guests in New Orleans while searching for that "something more" in his after-life. In M.T. Roberts' Summer in Seattle, we are introduced to Lincoln and Summer, two seemingly ordinary people in Seattle whose lives become intertwined after sharing a taxi. Soon after, Lincoln begins to appear outside of her apartment building, and Summer can't help but think that it's somehow related to the recent discovery by police of a child's severed arm in Pioneer Square. In our final story, an investigative video journalist documents his experiences infiltrating a mysterious cartel, and discovers evidence of a large-scale governmental conspiracy in Nathan Hodgdon's Whitewash. Each of these five tales are certain to provide you with the unique and exciting experiences that are currently lacking in the major publishing landscape. None of the stories have ever before been released, and are all exclusive to the Aberrant Literature Short Fiction Collection. Also, for exclusive additional content, head on over to the blog at www.AberrantLiterature.com

In the United States the conventional left/right distinction has become increasingly irrelevant, if not harmful. The reigning political, cultural, and economic visions of both the Democrats and the Republicans have reached obvious dead ends. Liberalism, with its hostility to any limits, is collapsing. So-called Conservatism has abandoned all pretense of conserving anything at all. Both dominant parties seem fundamentally incapable of offering coherent solutions for the problems that beset us. In light of this intellectual, cultural, and political stalemate, there is a need for a new vision. Localism in the Mass Age: A Front Porch Republic Manifesto assembles thirty-one essays by a variety of scholars and practitioners—associated with Front Porch Republic—seeking to articulate a new vision for a better future. The writers are convinced that human apprehension of the true, the good, and the beautiful is best realized within a dense web of meaningful family, neighborhood, and community relationships. These writers seek to advance human flourishing through the promotion of political decentralism, economic localism, and cultural regionalism. In short, Front Porch Republic is dedicated to renewing American culture by fostering the ideals necessary for strong communities.

A portrait of one of America's most profound and honest thinkers, this book combines biographical sketches, personal accounts, literary criticism, and social commentary to illuminate Berry as he is: a complex man of place and community with a depth of domestic, intellectual, filial, and fraternal attributes.

Jason Peters

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